After building kernel-2.6.34 version of Gentoo, and being a n00b w/ Gentoo, I had spent hours and several kernel recompiles because when I rebooted to the hard drive, I would get the VFS kernel panic.

Just FYI...

On the Ultra 5/10:

Compile the CMD64X PATA driver. (It is NOT in the deprecated tree.)
Your /boot/silo.conf root entry should be "/dev/sdX". Do not put hdX, it will not boot, and will generate the VFS kernel panic.
Your /etc/fstab entries should follow the convention of "/dev/sdX"

I finally realized this when I was on my openSUSE machine and looking at the devices there for another reason. After that, I realized that when booting the kernel recognizes your drive as /dev/sdX. I felt like an idiot after spending all that time on a stupid typo.